Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.
If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.
Summary/Engagement
“What is love?” A question often asked by people the world over. It could be a pop song from the 90’s by Haddaway. It could be defined as sacrifice. Some call it strong affection for someone or something. Others equate love with erotically. Love has been diluted so much that we can “love” our dog, ice cream, a sunset, a newspaper, a car, and a spouse all in one day. Given that I can understand why we ask the question so often “What is love?” (If you have that horrid song playing through your head, sorry.)Love
Love has a source, a purpose, and a receiver. Love is not some nebulous concept or impersonal force of its own. Love is not a god unto itself. Love is a character trait of God. The Bible says “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) We are not the source of love then, but reflect love because God loved us.
So what’s our guy say?
“Where the true affection of love to God is, it stirs up the soul to give all contentment to God, to do all things that may please him. This is the nature of love. It stirs up to please the party loved.”
Application / Further Discussion
With a title of “A Glance of Heaven” why all the talk of love? In talking about salvation and the Kingdom of God many like to use the dichotomy “already but not yet.” We are saved now, but that work will not be completed until the day of Jesus Christ. (Phil 1:6) The Kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15) yet this is not heaven. Heaven is where God is and the consummation of that kingdom is after the judgment. (Rev. 21:1-8) We see echoes of God in creation, his manifold wisdom and truth in His Word, and the love of God through people transformed by his Spirit. Love is a glance of heaven.
We want to imagine heaven in concrete terms like measurements and descriptions of what we will see. People think that heaven is where they can do whatever they want as though it is the place they achieve full self-sovereignty. (That is hell, not heaven.) Others think it’s a great big family reunion and we get angel wings and play harps on clouds. In all of these we miss the point. This is worldly wisdom that points to our worldly passions and lusts for self and comfort.
“We teach wisdom of things that are eternal, to make men eternal.”
Heaven is not the place for those who love self. Heaven is for those that love God. (1 Cor 2:9) I don’t mean the mental recitation of words, “Yeah, I love God.” “What is the bent of thy soul?” What does your soul pursue, think, and consider in the quiet moments? You can say you love God, but does your life prove it out? Do you desire him, his word, and his church?
“Profession must have expression.”
How does your love of God express itself? Are you known by your love for each other? (John 13:35) “For such as we love, such we are.”
If you cannot answer the question of whether you love God there is heart work for you to do. If you say you love God, do you obey his commands? (John 14:15) More heart work for all of us. We want Heaven and God but are unwilling to part with self and sin. Yet, we cannot have God and thus Heaven without a severing of self as god and sin as our slave master.
“Then, instead of placing a sufficiency in himself and the things of this life, and resting in them, there is a placing of sufficiency in God all-sufficient.”
That stirring of affection you feel in your heart for God is from him. Fan that flame and taste of Heaven. We need not know all of Heaven and what will be save that God is there and we will have him. I think God has limited our exposure of what is to come because our minds cannot handle it, nor would it be helpful for our sinful nature to have something other than God to fixate on. What else is there of Heaven but God?
Love stirs in the heart, heats the ice of death and sin away, and our souls move in affection to Christ our savior. We recognize our sinfulness and lostness and throw ourselves upon him pleading for mercy and weeping tears of gratitude and love for God who loved us and died for us. Through him, we now live. (Gal 2:20) Let your heart sing with joy and the knowledge and truth of; sin atoned for, soul redeemed, adopted by God, eternal inheritance with him. Many things will claw at you for your affections. Sin will try to choke your joy and steal your affections. Remember:
“For when we welcome Christ, then farewell all that cannot stand with Christ.”
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Last week, we finished reading The Soul’s Conflict.
Next week, we’ll read Spiritual Mourning.
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